Owen Hart

Professional Wrestler

Male

BornMay 7, 1965

HometownCalgary

DiedMay 23, 1999

Death PlaceKansas City, Miss...

Owen James Hart was a Canadian professional and amateur wrestler who worked for several promotions including Stampede Wrestling, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and most notably, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), where he wrestled under both his own name, and ring name The Blue Blazer.… Read More

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Vince McMahon, perhaps more than anyone else, gets credit for making the pro wrestling business into the juggernaut that it''s been throughout its various stages of existence, mostly in the 1980s with Hulkamania and then again in the 1990s with Stone Cold Steve Austin and the "Attitude Era."
The Chairman of the Board of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has been called many things, including a creative genius. While Vince Russo may have introduced many grand ideas during his t...

' Sports World News Owen Hart''s widow settles lawsuit against WWE Los Angeles Times The widow of professional wrestler Owen Hart has come to a settlement with World Wrestling Entertainment in her lawsuit over royalties and the use of her husband''s image. Martha Hart announced the settlement Wednesday, and the WWE confirmed the ... Widow, WWE settle Conn. lawsuit over use of late husband''s name, likenessWashington Post ...

Timeline

Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Owen Hart.

CHILDHOOD

1965Birth
Owen was born on May 7, 1965 in Calgary, Alberta into the Hart wrestling family.
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He was of Greek descent through his maternal grandparents. Hart first gained wrestling experience in the amateur wrestling division at high school, through which he met his wife, Martha. Wrestling was not Hart's first choice for a career; as Martha explained in her book Broken Harts, Owen tried numerous times to find a profitable living outside of wrestling. As those attempts were unsuccessful, Hart was trained in his father's Hart Dungeon and worked for his father’s federation, Stampede Wrestling and in England for Max Crabtree's Joint Promotions in matches that got broadcast on ITV's World of Sport. He remained with Stampede for the next couple of years while honing his skills. Read Less

TWENTIES

198621 Years Old
During 1986, Hart teamed with Ben Bassarab and won the Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Championship.

On May 27, 1988, Hart defeated Hiroshi Hase for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, becoming the first non-Japanese wrestler to win the title.

His reign would end nearly a month later, as he lost the title to Shiro Koshinaka on June 24, 1988.

Hart's success in Japan and Stampede’s working relationship with the World Wrestling Federation led to Hart signing with the company in the summer of 1988.
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Instead of promoting Owen as Bret Hart's younger brother, the WWF decided to create a masked "superhero" type gimmick for him which played to his high-flying style. He originally was called The Blue Angel for a brief period before being renamed The Blue Blazer, with his early appearances seeing him defeat the likes of Terry Gibbs, Steve Lombardi and Barry Horowitz. The Blazer made his pay-per-view debut at Survivor Series '88, teaming with The Ultimate Warrior, Brutus Beefcake, Jim Brunzell and Sam Houston against The Honky Tonk Man, Greg Valentine, Outlaw Ron Bass, Bad News Brown and Dangerous Danny Davis. The Blazer was eliminated by Valentine, but his team went on to win the match. Read Less

He continued to wrestle in the midcard, defeating enhancement talent but often falling short against other name talent; he lost to Ted DiBiase on the March 11, 1989 edition of Saturday Night's Main Event and was defeated by Mr. Perfect at WrestleMania V.

The pair successfully defended the belts against Test and D'Lo Brown at Wrestlemania XV. They lost the titles to the team of Kane and X-Pac on the (pre-taped) episode of Raw that aired on April 5, 1999. However, Hart and Jarrett continued to team together until Hart's death in May during the Over the Edge pay-per-view event. <br /><br />He met Martha Joan Patterson in 1982. Read Less

Oje Edward Hart was born on March 5, 1992 and Athena Christie Hart was born on September 23, 1995.<br /><br /> On May 28, 2011, Owen was inducted into the Legends Pro Wrestling "Hall of Fame" by Jack Blaze in Wheeling, West Virginia at their "LPW Hart & Soul Tour" event. The award was accepted by his brother-in-law Jim Neidhart who was also inducted that night.<br /><br /> Despite Owen Hart spending the majority of his WWF career portraying a cocky, obnoxious heel, he was very well liked by his fellow wrestlers backstage and was known for being easy to work with.<br /><br /> Hart was very frugal with his money; he had planned to save enough to retire and live comfortably with his family. When touring on the road with the WWF, he normally would stay in his hotel room while other wrestlers went out and partied on the evenings. Read Less

Shortly after WrestleMania, Hart left the WWF to tour the world both with and without the Blue Blazer gimmick. He also returned to Stampede, until it shut down in December 1989.

Owen debuted in World Championship Wrestling's self-titled TV show on March 16, 1991, the first of five TV matches he competed in, all of which were against preliminary talent.
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One of the bouts saw Owen team with Ricky Morton.<br /><br /> Hart had been engaged in contract discussions with WCW but the deal was never struck, as Owen was not willing to move himself and his family to the company's headquarters in Atlanta. Instead, he signed with the WWF for a second time. In the WWF the popular Hart Foundation, composed of his brother Bret and real-life brother-in-law Jim Neidhart, had split up; Bret set out on a singles career while Neidhart was used sparingly. When Neidhart returned from a storyline injury, he joined Owen to form a team known as The New Foundation.<br /><br /> Owen and Neidhart first feuded with the Beverly Brothers. They then had their only pay-per-view match at the Royal Rumble in January 1992 where they beat The Orient Express. Neidhart left the WWF shortly afterward, and Hart set out on a very short run as a singles wrestler, including a match at WrestleMania VIII against Skinner. Shortly after WrestleMania, Hart was teamed up with Koko B. Ware to form the duo known as High Energy. They had only one pay-per-view match as a team, at the Survivor Series where they lost to The Headshrinkers. Read Less

The team was quietly dropped at the start of 1993 with Hart starting a singles career.

In the middle of 1993, when Bret Hart’s feud with Jerry Lawler ignited, Owen stood by his brother’s side and fought against Lawler in the United States Wrestling Association where most of the WWF talent were considered the heels.
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Owen won the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship from Papa Shango. Read Less

Owen’s participation in the WWF vs. USWA feud was cut short when he suffered a knee injury in the summer of 1993 and was forced to take some time away from the ring.

Hart returned to the WWF ring in the fall of 1993, at a time when Bret’s feud with Lawler was temporarily sidetracked.
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Bret, along with Owen and their brothers Bruce and Keith, were scheduled to face Lawler and his team at Survivor Series. However, Lawler was unable to make it to the show, and as a result could not appear on WWF television. Lawler was replaced with Shawn Michaels. During the match Owen and Bret inadvertently crashed into each other, causing Owen to be eliminated from the team. Owen showed up after the match and had a heated confrontation with Bret, while Keith, Bruce and Stu tried to calm things down. This confrontation resulted in Owen leaving the ring to boos while his brothers and father watched in dismay and mother Helen cried at ringside. The following night Owen adopted the pink and black tights, sunglasses and Sharpshooter finisher to send a message to his brother. Owen, angry with being in Bret's shadow, challenged his brother which Bret declined. Instead the brothers seemed to reunite by the holidays. Read Less

Owen James Hart (May 7, 1965 – May 23, 1999) was a Canadian professional and amateur wrestler who worked for several promotions including Stampede Wrestling, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and most notably, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), where he wrestled under both his own name, and ring name The Blue Blazer. A member of the Hart wrestling family, Hart was born in Calgary, Alberta, the youngest of 12 children of Stampede Wrestling promoter and WWE Hall of Famer Stu Hart and Helen Hart. <br /><br />Among other accolades, Hart was a one-time world champion, having held the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship during the USWA's partnership with the WWF, a two-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, a one-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, a one-time WWF European Champion, and a four-time WWF World Tag Team Champion. He was also the winner of the 1994 WWF King of the Ring. A staple of the WWF's In Your House pay-per-view series from 1995 to 1998, Hart wrestled more matches at those events than any other performer with 22, including three headlining slots. Read Less

He also main-evented SummerSlam 1994 in a steel cage match against older brother Bret Hart for the WWF Championship, which remains one of five WWF matches in history awarded a full five stars in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

THIRTIES

When the referee stopped the match due to Bret's damaged knee, Owen snapped; he kicked his brother in the knee and then walked off, berating Bret on the Titantron shortly after as Bret was being helped backstage. This started his run as a heel. After the act an infuriated Owen accused his brother of being selfish and holding him down. Owen admitted that it felt good to take out his brother. The two brothers faced off for the first time at WrestleMania X, where Owen cleanly pinned his older brother. Later in the evening, Bret won the WWF Title while Owen stood by and watched in jealousy as Bret celebrated in the ring. Owen won the King of the Ring Tournament with Jim Neidhart’s help. After the victory, Owen took the nickname “The King of Harts." <br /><br />Owen and Bret feuded throughout the summer of 1994, clashing many times both in singles and later in tag team matches (with Bret joined by the returning British Bulldog). Two matches stand out in this feud: first, their Steel Cage match at SummerSlam for Bret's WWF Championship, which Bret won. This match later received a five-star rating from Dave Meltzer. The second was a lumberjack match on August 17 that Owen initially won and was announced as WWF Champion; Bret won the match after it was ordered to continue due to interference. At the Survivor Series, Owen struck the most damaging blow against his brother as he conned his own mother Helen to throw in the towel for Bret. The ploy cost Bret the world title to Bob Backlund. Read Less

Owen also prevented Bret from regaining the title at the Royal Rumble in 1995 when he interfered in the match between Bret and new champion Diesel.
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In the weeks after the Rumble, Bret and Owen clashed again with Bret soundly defeating his brother, thus putting an end to their feud for the time being.<br /><br /> Owen rebounded from the loss to Bret by winning the WWF Tag Team title from The Smoking Gunns at WrestleMania XI. Owen, who was joined by a "Mystery Partner", had challenged the Gunns to a title match; the partner turned out to be former world champion Yokozuna. After the victory Owen took Jim Cornette and Mr. Fuji as his managers, who already managed Yokozuna. The team defended the title for five months until they lost them to Shawn Michaels and Diesel at In Your House 3. They would briefly hold the title a second time when the belts were handed back to them before the Smoking Gunns regained the title. Owen and Yokozuna would continue to team off and on until the end of the year. Read Less

199631 Years Old
In September 1996, Bulldog and Hart earned a pay-per-view shot at the tag team title at In Your House 10.
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Owen and Bulldog left with the gold after defeating the Smoking Gunns. They also left with a new manager as Clarence Mason had conned Jim Cornette into signing over the contracts of the new champions. Signs of dissension, however, slowly started to show. One occasion where this was evident was at the Royal Rumble when Hart accidentally eliminated Bulldog. After the Rumble, they had miscommunication in matches against Doug Furnas and Philip Lafon and Bulldog fired Mason after losing a match to Crush who was also managed by Mason, something which did not sit well with Hart. Another bone of contention between the two was the newly created WWF European Championship; both men had fought their way to the finals to crown the first champion with Bulldog coming out as the victor.<br /><br /> After retaining the tag team title against the Headbangers by disqualification on the March 24, 1997 edition of Monday Night Raw, the tension between the two bubbled over. An incensed Hart demanded a shot at Bulldog’s European title the next week. The match was booked for March 31; on the night, the two went at it with such intensity that many thought the tag team champions had finally gone their separate ways. Then in a shocking moment, the recently turned heel Bret Hart appeared at ringside and stopped the match. Bret appealed to both Owen and Bulldog, talking about the importance of family. Read Less

They agreed to put their differences aside and join with Bret to form the new Hart Foundation, an anti-American stable that also included Hart in-law Jim Neidhart and Hart family friend Brian Pillman. <br /><br />After forming the Hart Foundation, Owen quickly gained singles gold of his own as he pinned Rocky Maivia to win his first WWF Intercontinental Championship. This meant that the Hart Foundation held every WWF title except the World title, cementing their dominance over the federation. Read Less

It was not all success for Owen, though, as he and the British Bulldog lost their tag team title to Stone Cold Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels on May 26, 1997.
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Owen and Bulldog got a second chance at regaining the tag team titles after Michaels vacated his half of the championship due to an injury. On the July 14, 1997 edition of Raw the two entered a tournament and won to face Austin and a partner of his choice that evening for the vacant titles.
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That partner turned out to be Dude Love, who declared himself to be Austin's partner and helped him defeat Hart and Bulldog for the tag team championship.<br /><br /> At SummerSlam in August, Hart was to defend his Intercontinental Championship against Austin in a "Kiss My Ass" match, where Hart put the title up against Austin having to kiss his buttocks if he lost. During the match, Hart botched a piledriver and dropped Austin on the top of his head, injuring his neck. Austin won the title from Hart that evening, but due to the injury was forced to vacate the title. Although the entire situation was an accident, the WWF decided to make it part of the storyline as Owen began wearing a t-shirt patterned after Austin's that read "Owen 3:16/I Just Broke Your Neck". Hart was then entered into a tournament to crown a new champion. Read Less

Owen beat Faarooq with Austin’s help. Afterward, Austin explained that he wanted to beat Hart for the title when he returned and would not allow Faarooq or anyone else to beat him. After Hart retained the title twice by disqualification between Bad Blood and Survivor Series in Montreal, Austin got his wish and defeated Hart for the Intercontinental Championship again. Later that night, the Montreal Screwjob took place. Bret left the Federation after the event and both the British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart were granted quick releases from their contracts to jump to WCW. This left Owen as the only Hart family member remaining in the WWF, due to his contractual obligations. Unlike Smith and Neidhart, Vince McMahon did not grant Owen a release from his contract and Owen remained with the company. He was skeptical about returning to WCW anyway, as he was not confident that the organization would use him correctly. Bret has said that the biggest reason Owen did not make the move was because WCW president Eric Bischoff was unwilling to match his WWF contract. <br /><br />Hart was not seen or mentioned on WWF programming until he made a surprise appearance after Shawn Michaels retained his title following a disqualification loss to Ken Shamrock at In Your House: D-Generation X where he attacked Shawn Michaels. Now a fan favorite, but with a new edgy, antisocial attitude, Hart became known as "The Lone Hart" and also "The Black Hart". Read Less

Owen had a feud with DX and challenged Shawn Michaels for the WWF Championship on the December 29, 1997 edition of Raw: Hart had Michaels locked in the sharpshooter when Triple H interfered in order to save Michaels' title, giving Hart the victory by disqualification.
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He later won the European title from Triple H, although not directly. Goldust dressed up as Triple H in an attempt to swerve Hart, but Commissioner Slaughter considered him to be a legitimate replacement. Hart later suffered a kayfabe ankle injury during a match against Barry Windham involving Triple H. When Hart joined the commentary at ringside, Triple H managed to draw Owen into an impromptu title match and regained the title. Chyna interfered while the referee wasn't looking and while Triple H was distracting the referee, she struck Hart behind the left knee with a baseball bat, picked him up and threw him back into the ring where Triple H put Hart in a reverse ankle lock to his injured right ankle to win the European Championship under referees discretion in controversial fashion.<br /><br /> Four weeks after WrestleMania, during a tag team match with Ken Shamrock against D'Lo Brown and Rocky Maivia (later known as The Rock), Hart turned on Shamrock, "snapping" his ankle and "biting his ear" in the process. After the attack on Shamrock, Hart became the co-leader, with The Rock, of the Nation of Domination, claiming that “Enough is enough and it’s time for a change". The Nation's first big feud after Hart joined was against DX. It was during this feud that D-Generation X parodied the Nation of Domination. The imitation was complete with an actor dressing up as Hart and uttering the phrase "I am not a nugget"; this was in response to Shawn Michaels referring to Owen as a nugget of feces in a toilet bowl, and no matter how many times Michaels flushed, it kept sticking around and he was unable to get rid of it. "Nugget" became a derisive term that followed Hart for the rest of his career. Read Less

After a match in which Hart "accidentally injured" Dan Severn, Hart seemingly quit the WWF. Playing off the legitimate injury Hart had inflicted on Austin the year before, the angle blurred the lines between reality and "storyline". Yet as soon as Hart "quit", the Blue Blazer appeared in the WWF claiming to in no way be Hart despite it being very obvious who was under the mask. Unlike the first run of the character, the Blazer was now an overbearing, self-righteous heel who treated the edgy Attitude Era WWF with disdain. Hart and Jarrett ended up making the storyline comical. To prove that Hart was not the Blazer, he showed up beside the Blue Blazer, who was a masked Jarrett. In a later attempt to prove that neither Hart or Jarrett was the Blazer, they both appeared next to a man in the Blue Blazer mask; however, it was obvious that a black man was under the mask (Hart's former tag team partner Koko B. Ware). Read Less

On January 25, 1999, in the midst of the Blue Blazer angle Hart and Jarrett defeated Ken Shamrock and The Big Boss Man for the tag team title.

On May 23, 1999, Hart fell to his death in Kansas City, Missouri during the Over the Edge pay-per-view event.
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Hart was in the process of being lowered via harness and grapple line into the ring from the rafters of Kemper Arena for a booked Intercontinental Championship match against The Godfather. In keeping with the Blazer's new "buffoonish superhero" character, he was to begin a dramatic entrance, being lowered to just above ring level, at which time he would act "entangled", then release himself from the safety harness and fall flat on his face for comedic effect—this necessitated the use of a quick release mechanism. It was an elaboration on a Blue Blazer stunt done previously on the Sunday Night Heat before Survivor Series in 1998.<br /><br /> While being lowered into the ring, Hart fell 78 feet (24 m), landing chest-first on the top rope (approximately a foot from the nearest turnbuckle), throwing him into the ring.<br /><br /> Hart had performed the stunt only a few times before. Hart's widow Martha has suggested that, by moving around to get comfortable with both the harness and his cape on, Hart unintentionally triggered an early release. Television viewers did not see the incident. During the fall, a pre-taped vignette was being shown on the pay-per-view broadcast as well as on the monitors in the darkened arena. Afterward, while Hart was being worked on by medical personnel inside the ring, the live event's broadcast showed only the audience. Meanwhile, WWF television announcer Jim Ross repeatedly told those watching live on pay-per-view that what had just transpired was not a wrestling angle or storyline and that Hart was hurt badly, emphasizing the seriousness of the situation. Read Less

Raw is Owen is the name given to a special live episode of WWF Raw is War that aired on May 24, 1999, the night after Hart's death.
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It was broadcast live from the Kiel Center in St. Louis. It featured shoot interviews from his fellow wrestlers. According to Raw Exposed (a special that aired before the first Raw airing on its return to USA Network on October 3, 2005), all storylines and rivalries were put aside, and WWF management gave all wrestlers on the roster the option of working or not. Nevertheless, ten matches were booked with no angles.<br /><br /> The show began with all the wrestlers, managers, referees and agents of the WWF (except WWF Champion The Undertaker and Kane) standing on the entrance ramp; Vince, Linda, and Stephanie McMahon were at the front of the ramp. Howard Finkel called for a ten-bell salute. Hart's former Nation of Domination comrades were emotional, most notably Mark Henry, who read a poem that he wrote in memory of Hart. A tribute video narrated by Vince then played on the Titan Tron. Throughout the broadcast, personal thoughts on Hart in the form of shoot interviews with various WWF Superstars were played. Before the first commercial break, such thoughts were aired from Mick Foley and Bradshaw. Foley noted that Hart was his son's favorite wrestler and had proudly gotten a haircut like Owen's, although he also said his son did not quite understand that "nugget" was not a term of endearment. Bradshaw talked about how Hart spent less money on the road than most wrestlers because he wanted to retire early and spend time with his family. Read Less

Regarded by a number of peers as one of the WWF's greatest professional wrestlers, Hart died on May 23, 1999, when an equipment malfunction occurred during his entrance from the rafters of Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S., at the WWF's Over the Edge pay-per-view event.